On Valentine's Day, prisoner Deane Brown, who sounded an alarm that drew international attention to the savagery of solitary confinement and other abuses in the Maine State Prison's "supermax" unit, was returned to the Warren prison after an exile of more than six years.

On March 12, the American Civil Liberties Union told an international commission that Maine had become a model for how solitary confinement can be reduced.

With these two events, a nearly eight-year-old chapter in the struggle for prison reform in Maine may have closed.

"We could all take a moment to feel good about what has been achieved," reflected Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition (MPAC) co-coordinator Jim Bergin.

In 2005, Brown not only spoke out but also organized other supermax prisoners to be interviewed by the Phoenix. In 2006, to try to end his connection to the Maine news media, the Department of Corrections shipped him to violent, racial-gang-ridden prisons in Maryland and, in 2010, to the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton.

The supermax abuses Brown and other inmates described — especially, prolonged isolation's destructive effects on mentally ill prisoners — are still common across the country. But they are increasingly recognized as torture. The ACLU report calls solitary confinement "barbaric."

Referring to his whistleblowing, Brown, 49, said in a recent prison interview, "I'd do it all again tomorrow."

He has returned to a changed prison. The first change he mentioned was the huge reduction in the number of inmates held in the supermax because less-harsh disciplinary methods have been substituted for solitary confinement. Guards may defuse disruptive situations simply by talking with prisoners.

And "guards aren't going out of their way" now to rile up prisoners, Brown said.

He noted, however — confirming other reports — that not all guards have accepted the changes. Some "feel their hands are tied," he said. They say they fear the new policies will lead to more inmate violence.

But even with what Brown said was insufficient prison staff, he hadn't seen any violence in the weeks since he returned, he said, adding: "I just came from a place where someone is stabbed, beaten every day."

Brown, serving 59 years for a 1990s' burglary spree, has found other positive changes. There's less of the guards' "buddy-buddy system." Inmates and reformers have long complained of correctional officers protecting each other's bad conduct.

Because of sores on his feet from diabetes, Brown now uses a wheelchair to get around much of the time. But his health is improving with the Maine prison's care, he said, though like other prisoners he complained about a policy prohibiting opiate painkillers.

There are "some quality people" on the medical staff, Brown observed, and some not so.

Among Commissioner Joseph Ponte's reforms is a new prison medical-service provider, Correct Care Solutions, which Ponte has praised. MPAC, however, still "continues to be very concerned" with inmate care, said its other coordinator, Judy Garvey.

The ACLU report, "Change Is Possible," given to the Organization of American States human rights commission, was written by Maine ACLU attorney Zachary Heiden.

It urges the commission to investigate solitary-confinement practices in this country, where at least 80,000 prisoners are held in isolation cells. The United States is the only country practicing mass solitary confinement.

LePage interested in corporate prisons In the gubernatorial campaign the controversial Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation's largest for-profit prison operator, spent $25,000 on behalf of Republican candidate Paul LePage, now the governor-elect.

Tapley racks up another award Portland Phoenix contributing writer Lance Tapley, who has covered conditions in the Maine State Prison and throughout the state's corrections system since 2005, will be honored by the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine for "outstanding advocacy for prison reform."

Whistle-blower asks to come home In 2011 reform-minded Commissioner Joseph Ponte of the Maine Department of Corrections set up a formal process — apparently, rare in the United States — for prisoners transferred to out-of-state prison systems to apply to come home.

Prison whistleblower to return to Maine Maine corrections commissioner Joseph Ponte has notified Deane Brown, the inmate whistleblower who in 2005 was the original source for the Phoenix 's lengthy series on prison abuse, that he will be allowed to return to Maine.

Senator Collins helps derail prison reform As a result of the apparent decision by congressional Republicans to oppose almost everything Democrats are for, Maine Senator Susan Collins — who claims to be above partisanship — helped derail Virginia Democratic Senator Jim Webb's bill to establish a bipartisan National Criminal Justice Commission. Maine's Olympia Snowe and three other Republicans joined unanimous Senate Democrats to support it.

Screams from solitary The 132-man supermax unit within the 925-man Maine State Prison is an expensive, taxpayer-funded torture chamber that for 18 years has sucked in mostly nonviolent, mostly mentally ill prisoners and ground them up by means of mind-destroying solitary confinement, officially sanctioned beatings, “restraint” devices resembling those in medieval dungeons, sexual humiliation, and psychiatric, medical, and legal neglect.

The reform-proof prison From the beginning of her tenure as commissioner, Department of Correction (DOC) commissioner Kathleen Dennehy clashed with union loyalists intent on maintaining the status quo.

Pushing to remove shackles from pregnant prisoners It sounds almost too cruel to be true: a woman inmate is shackled to a hospital bed while delivering her baby. Sadly, hundreds of women across the country endure that humiliation, an unthinkable indignity for an already downtrodden group.

SUBVERSIVE SUMMER | June 18, 2014 Prisons, pot festivals, and Orgonon: Here are some different views of summertime Maine — seen through my personal political lens.

LEFT-RIGHT CONVERGENCE - REALLY? | June 06, 2014 “Unstoppable: A Gathering on Left-Right Convergence,” sponsored by consumer advocate Ralph Nader, featured 26 prominent liberal and conservative leaders discussing issues on which they shared positions. One was the minimum wage.

STATE OF POLARIZATION | April 30, 2014 As the campaign season begins, leading the charge on one side is a rural- and northern-Maine-based Trickle-Down Tea Party governor who sees government’s chief role as helping the rich (which he says indirectly helps working people), while he vetoes every bill in sight directly helping the poor and the struggling middle class, including Medicaid expansion, the issue that most occupied the Legislature this year and last.

MICHAEL JAMES SENT BACK TO PRISON | April 16, 2014 The hearing’s topic was whether James’s “antisocial personality disorder” was enough of a mental disease to keep him from being sent to prison.